Social media has mass potential for marketing and growing your small business, but anything in business can easily be overwhelming if you don’t have a process.

Here are a few ways you can take advantage of social without adding additional overwhelm to the process:

USE A SOCIAL MEDIA SCHEDULER

A social media scheduler will help you maximize your time especially if you like to plan all your posts in advance for the week. You can schedule posts to all your social pages in one place. It would be time-consuming (to say the least) trying to log into 5 different social accounts (or more) daily to make posts. If you use a scheduler like Buffer, you can re-buffer (re-post) posts that you shared previously from your account. Also, a scheduler tracks your post performance and analytics so you know how your posts are doing which will help with future posts. Analytics tracking is a time saver in itself.

ENGAGE ON THE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS YOU MOST ENJOY

There’s nothing worse than trying to engage and network on a social platform you hate. Forcing yourself can even create procrastination so now you’re overwhelmed by doing nothing! You can find me on all the major social media platforms but that doesn’t mean you have to be. Look at each of your social platforms and find out which ones have brought you the most inquiries, engagement and customers in the past. Then do a second comparison looking specifically at which ones you can live with being active on daily. Commit to maximizing the ones you decide to maintain and totally ditch the rest!

BLOCK TIME ON YOUR CALENDAR FOR SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT

If you’re not careful you can be on social media like it's a full-time job! It’s on your phone, your computer, your tablet…everywhere! Interacting daily is super important as it brings the human factor to your social media marketing and helps build relationships. Set a timer and check in 1-3 times each day. You can even take the weekends off if you like!

FOCUS ON ONE PLATFORM AT A TIME

It’s hard to make any ground if you’re back and forth between a Facebook group and your Twitter feed every time you get a notification. If you’re working on Facebook group replies and posts, do that only when you’re done, then you can move on to your Twitter time to follow new pages, like posts and do re-tweets. Then move on to the next social platform on your list and so on. Try to make things as systematic as possible. You can also use a system like eClincher which has a unified inbox, where you can respond and engage with activities throughout all your social media platforms.

LEARN AT YOUR OWN PACE

Social media is always changing so you will likely never know all the ins and outs and must be willing to keep learning. Don’t worry about trying to know everything there is to know about every platform you are on. Learn the basics like how and what to post, and check in daily with your networks. You can learn other features as you go. For example, you might decide to learn Facebook ads one month and then decide how to post native video on Facebook the next month. If you're a local business, check out this free eBook from my friends Andrea Vahl and Phyllis Khare on “How to Grow Your Local Business on Social Media” - it shows all types of successful social media campaigns from other local businesses that you can use as a template. If you're up for live in-person social media training, I highly recommend “Social Media Marketing World” by Social Media Examiner - next workshop is February 28, 2018 to March 2, 2018, in San Diego California. Social Media Examiner also offers virtual tickets if you can't travel. At Social Media Marketing World, you'll hear from the top experts in areas of social media and online marketing.

HIRE A SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

This is a great option if you don’t have the time, know-how, or patience for social media but wish to reap the benefits. You will want to set aside time for engagement or set up a process for how your social media manager or team member will help with engagement and respond to requests on your behalf. Having someone else handle responses or the engagement piece means they must have a really good sense of your personality, business culture, and brand.

Finally, pick one of these methods to start your road to less social media overwhelm then build upon it until you have a steady and consistent process that works! Still stuck? Book a consultation today to discuss how we can help.